Opening this Week:

News and Notes:

A plagiarism lawsuit has been served on the producers of Anastasia, which is set to begin performances on March 23, 2017 at the Broadhurst Theatre and will officially open on April 24. Jean-Etienne de Becdelievre, an heir of Marcelle Maurette, who wrote a 1952 play called Anastasia, wants to stop the show until an agreement on licensing can be made. The new musical reunites the Tony Award-winning writers of the Broadway classic Ragtime: book writer Terrence McNally, composer Stephen Flaherty, and lyricist Lynn Ahrens. Anastasia features direction by Darko Tresnjak, Tony Award winner for Best Direction of a Musical for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. The musical recently completed a sold-out, record breaking world premiere engagement at Hartford Stage in Connecticut. Click here for more on this story.

Broadway Stars Receive Golden Globe Nominations

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis earned Golden Globe nominations for their performances in the film version of August Wilson’s play Fences. Washington and Davis both won Tony Awards for playing the same roles in the most recent Broadway revival of the play. Tony, Pulitzer, Grammy, and Emmy winner Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) is in line for another major award, being nominated for Best Song for a tune from Disney’s Moana. Bryan Cranston, who won a Tony Award for his performance as President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the Broadway production of All the Way, scored a nomination for playing the same role in the TV movie adaptation of the play. A list of all Golden Globe nominees can be found here.

The Pasadena Playhouse in California will host the developmental, world-premiere engagement of Dotson Rader’s play God Looked Away, which stars Al Pacino as the late Cat on a Hot Tin Roof playwright Tennessee Williams. The play is being developed for Broadway, adapted from Rader’s 1985 Williams biography. The six-week engagement begins February 8, 2017, for a run through March 19. For more on the new production, click here.

The Hamilton Mixtape Debuts at No. 1

As predicted, The Hamilton Mixtape, a remixed soundtrack to the Broadway megahit Hamilton, debuted at the top of the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart last week. The album, which features songs from the Tony award-winning historical musical sung by artists such as Kelly Clarkson, John Legend and Alicia Keys, sold 187,000 album units according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan for the week ending December 8. The Billboard 200 album chart tallies units from album sales, song sales and streaming activity. Find more on this story here.